A Breath of Snow and Ashes

  To my Lord John Grey, Mount Josiah Plantation,

  this 2nd day of April, Anno Domini 1774

  My lord,

  I depart in the morning to visit the Cherokee, and so leave this with my wife, to be entrusted to Mr. Higgins when he shall next arrive, to be delivered with its accompanying parcel into your hands.

  I presume upon your kindness and your solicitude for my family in asking your favor to help in selling the object I entrust to you. I suspect that your connexions might enable you to obtain a better price than I might do myself—and to do so discreetly.

  I shall hope upon my return to confide in you the reasons for my action, as well as certain philosophical reflections which you may find of interest. In the meantime, believe me ever

  Your most affectionate friend and humble servant,

  J. Fraser

  42

  DRESS REHEARSAL

  BOBBY HIGGINS looked uneasily at me over his mug of beer.

  “Beg pardon, mum,” he said. “But you wouldn’t be a-thinking of practicing some type of physic upon me, would you? The worms are gone, I’m sure of it. And the—the other”—he blushed slightly and squirmed upon the bench—“that’s quite all right, too. I’ve et so many beans, I fart quite regular, and not a touch of the fiery knives about it!”

  Jamie had frequently remarked upon the transparency of my features, but this was surprising perspicacity on Bobby’s part.

  “I’m thrilled to hear it,” I said, evading his question momentarily. “You look quite in the pink of health, Bobby.”

  He did; the hollow, wasted look had left him, and his flesh was firm and solid, his eyes bright. The blind one hadn’t gone milky, nor did it wander perceptibly; he must have some residual ability to detect light and shape, which strengthened my original diagnosis of a partially detached retina.

  He nodded warily, and took a sip of beer, still keeping his eyes fixed on me.

  “I’m very well indeed, mum,” he said.

  “Splendid. You don’t happen to know how much you weigh, do you, Bobby?”

  The look of wariness vanished, replaced by modest pride.

  “Happen I do, mum. I took some fleeces to the river port for his Lordship last month, and was a mercer there what had a scale for weighing out—tobacco or rice, or blocks of indigo as it might be. Some of us fellows got to wagering for sport what this or that might weigh, and . . . well, ten stone four it is, mum.”

  “Very nice,” I said with approval. “Lord John’s cook must be feeding you well.” I thought he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds when I first saw him; a hundred and forty-four was still on the light side for a man of nearly six feet, but it was a major improvement. And a real stroke of luck, that he should have known his weight exactly.

  Of course, if I didn’t act fast, he might easily gain a stone or two; Mrs. Bug had set herself to outdo Lord John’s Indian cook (of whom we had heard much), and to this end was shoveling eggs, onions, venison, and a slice of leftover pork pie onto Bobby’s plate, to say nothing of the basket of fragrant muffins already in front of him.

  Lizzie, seated beside me, took one of these and spread it with butter. I noted with approval that she, too, was looking healthier, delicately flushed—though I must remember to take a sample to check the malarial parasites in her blood. That would be an excellent thing to do while she was out. No way of getting an exact weight for her, unfortunately—but she couldn’t weigh more than seven stone, small and light-boned as she was.

  Now, Bree and Roger at the other end of the scale . . . Roger had to weigh at least a hundred and eighty-five; Bree probably one-fifty. I took a muffin myself, thinking how best to bring up my plan. Roger would do it if I asked, of course, but Bree . . . I’d have to be careful there. She’d had her tonsils out under ether at the age of ten, and hadn’t liked the experience. If she found out what I was up to and began expressing her opinions freely, she might arouse alarm in the rest of my guinea pigs.

  Enthused by my success at making ether, I had seriously underestimated the difficulty of inducing anyone to let me use it on them. Mr. Christie might well be an awkward bugger, as Jamie on occasion called him—but he was not alone in his resistance to the notion of being rendered suddenly unconscious.

  I would have thought that the appeal of painlessness was universal—but not to people who had never experienced it. They had no context in which to place such a notion, and while they presumably didn’t all think ether was a Papist plot, they did view an offer to remove pain from them as being in some way contrary to the divine vision of the universe.

  Bobby and Lizzie, though, were sufficiently under my sway that I was fairly sure I could coax—or bully—them into a brief trial. If they then reported the experience in a positive light . . . but improved public relations was only the half of it.

  The real necessity was to try my ether out on a variety of subjects, taking careful note of the results. The scare of Henri-Christian’s birth had shown me how woefully unprepared I was. I needed to have some idea of how much to administer per unit of body weight, how long such-and-such a dose might last, and how deep the resulting stupor might be. The last thing I wanted was to be up to my elbows in someone’s abdomen, only to have them come suddenly round with a shriek.

  “You’re doing it again, mum.” Bobby’s brow creased as he chewed slowly, eyes narrowed at me.

  “What? What am I doing?” I feigned innocence, helping myself to a bit of the pork pie.

  “Watching me. Same as a sparrer hawk watches a mouse, just afore she stoops. I’n’t she?” he appealed to Lizzie.

  “Aye, she is,” Lizzie agreed, dimpling at me. “But it’s only her way, ken. Ye’d make a big mouse, Bobby.” Being Scottish, she pronounced it “moose,” which made Bobby laugh and choke over his muffin.

  Mrs. Bug paused to pound him helpfully on the back, leaving him purple and gasping.

  “Well, wha’s amiss wi’ him, then?” she asked, coming round to squint critically at Bobby’s face. “Ye’ve no got the shits again, have ye, lad?”

  “Again?” I said.

  “Oh, no, mum,” he croaked. “Perish the thought! ’Twas only eating green apples, the once.” He choked, coughed, and sat up straight, clearing his throat.

  “Can we please not talk about me bowels, mum?” he asked plaintively. “Not over breakfast, at least?”

  I could feel Lizzie vibrating with amusement next to me, but she kept her eyes demurely on her plate, not to embarrass him further.

  “Certainly,” I said, smiling. “I hope you’ll be staying for a few days, Bobby?” He’d come the day before, bearing the usual assortment of letters and newspapers from Lord John—along with a package containing a marvelous present for Jemmy: a musical jack-in-the-box, sent specially from London by the good offices of Lord John’s son, Willie.

  “Oh, I s’all, mum, yes,” he assured me, mouth full of muffin. “His Lordship said I was to see if Mr. Fraser had a letter for me to carry back, so I must wait for him, mustn’t I?”

  “Of course.” Jamie and Ian had gone to the Cherokee a week before; it was likely to be another week before they returned. Plenty of time to make my experiments.

  “Is there anything I might do, mum, in the way of service to you?” Bobby asked. “Seeing as I’m here, I mean, and Mr. Fraser and Mr. Ian not.” There was a small tone of satisfaction in this; he got on all right with Ian, but there was no doubt that he preferred to have Lizzie’s attention to himself.

  “Why, yes,” I said, scooping up a bit of porridge. “Now that you mention it, Bobby . . .”

  By the time I had finished explaining, Bobby still looked healthy, but a good deal less in bloom.

  “Put me asleep,” he repeated uncertainly. He glanced at Lizzie, who looked a little uncertain, too, but who was much too used to being told to do unreasonable things to protest.

  “You’ll only be asleep for a moment,” I assured him. “Likely you won’t even notice.”

&nbs
p; His face expressed considerable skepticism, and I could see him shifting about for some excuse. I’d foreseen that ploy, though, and now played my trump card.

  “It’s not only me needing to judge the dose,” I said. “I can’t operate on someone and give the ether at the same time—or not easily. Malva Christie will be assisting me; she’ll need the practice.”

  “Oh,” Bobby said thoughtfully. “Miss Christie.” A sort of soft, dreamy expression spread across his face. “Well. I s’ouldn’t want to put Miss Christie out, of course.”

  Lizzie made one of those economical Scottish noises in the back of her throat, managing to convey scorn, derision, and abiding disapproval in the space of two glottal syllables.

  Bobby looked up in inquiry, a bit of pie poised on his fork.

  “Did you say something?”

  “Who, me?” she said. “O’ course not.” She got up abruptly and, carrying her apron before her, neatly shook crumbs into the fire, and turned to me.

  “When d’ye mean to do it?” she demanded, adding a belated, “ma’am.”

  “Tomorrow morning,” I said. “It needs to be done on an empty stomach, so we’ll do it first thing, before breakfast.”

  “Fine!” she said, and stamped out.

  Bobby blinked after her, then turned to me, bewildered.

  “Did I say something?”

  Mrs. Bug’s eye met mine in perfect understanding.

  “Not a thing, lad,” she said, depositing a fresh spatulaful of scrambled eggs onto his plate. “Eat up. Ye’ll need your strength.”

  BRIANNA, CLEVER WITH her hands, had made the mask to my specifications, woven of oak splits. It was simple enough, a sort of double cage, hinged so that the two halves of it swung apart for the insertion of a thick layer of cotton wool between them, and then back together, the whole thing shaped to fit like a catcher’s mask over the patient’s nose and mouth.

  “Put enough ether on to dampen the cotton wool all through,” I instructed Malva. “We’ll want it to take effect quickly.”

  “Aye, ma’am. Oh, it does smell queer, doesn’t it?” She sniffed cautiously, face turned half away as she dripped ether onto the mask.

  “Yes. Do be careful not to breathe too much of it yourself,” I said. “We don’t want you falling over in the midst of an operation.”

  She laughed, but dutifully held the mask further away.

  Lizzie had bravely offered to go first—with the clear intent of deflecting Bobby’s attention from Malva to her. This was working; she lay in a languid pose on the table, cap off, and her soft, pale hair displayed to best advantage on the pillow. Bobby sat beside her, earnestly holding her hand.

  “All right, then.” I had a tiny minute-glass to hand, the best I could do by way of keeping accurate time. “Put it gently over her face. Lizzie, just breathe deeply, and count with me, one . . . two . . . goodness, that didn’t take long, did it?”

  She’d taken one long breath, rib cage rising high—and then gone limp as a dead flounder as the breath went out. I hastily flipped the glass, and came to take her pulse. All well there.

  “Wait for a bit; you can feel it, when they start to come round, a sort of vibration in the flesh,” I instructed Malva, keeping one eye on Lizzie and the other on the glass. “Put your hand on her shoulder. . . . There, do you feel it?”

  Malva nodded, nearly trembling with excitement.

  “Two or three drops then.” She added these, her own breath held, and Lizzie relaxed again with a sigh like an escape of air from a punctured tire.

  Bobby’s blue eyes were absolutely round, but he clung fiercely to Lizzie’s other hand.

  I timed the period to arousal once or twice more, then let Malva put her under a little more deeply. I picked up the lancet I had ready, and pricked Lizzie’s finger. Bobby gasped as the blood welled up, looking back and forth from the crimson drop to Lizzie’s angelically peaceful face.

  “Why, she don’t feel it!” he exclaimed. “Look, she’s never moved a muscle!”

  “Exactly,” I said, with a profound feeling of satisfaction. “She won’t feel anything at all, until she comes round.”

  “Mrs. Fraser says we could cut someone quite open,” Malva informed Bobby, self-importantly. “Slice into them, and get at what’s ailing—and they’d never feel a thing!”

  “Well, not until they woke up,” I said, amused. “They’d feel it then, I’m afraid. But it really is quite a marvelous thing,” I added more softly, looking down at Lizzie’s unconscious face.

  I let her stay under whilst I checked the fresh blood sample, then told Malva to take the mask off. Within a minute, Lizzie’s eyelids began to flutter. She looked curiously round, then turned to me.

  “When are ye going to start it, ma’am?”

  Despite assurances from both Bobby and Malva that she had been to all appearances dead as a doornail for the last quarter hour, she refused to believe it, asserting indignantly that she couldn’t have been—though at a loss to explain the prick on her finger and the slide of freshly smeared blood.

  “You remember the mask on your face?” I asked. “And my telling you to take a deep breath?”

  She nodded uncertainly.

  “Aye, I do, then, and it felt for a moment as though I were choking—but then ye were all just staring down at me, next thing!”

  “Well, I suppose the only way to convince her is to show her,” I said, smiling at the three flushed young faces. “Bobby?”

  Eager to demonstrate the truth of the matter to Lizzie, he hopped up on the table and laid himself down with a will, though the pulse in his slender throat was hammering as Malva dripped ether on the mask. He drew a deep, convulsive gasp the moment she put it on his face. Frowning a bit, he took another—one more—and went limp.

  Lizzie clapped both hands to her mouth, staring.

  “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” she exclaimed. Malva giggled, thrilled at the effect.

  Lizzie looked at me, eyes wide, then back at Bobby. Stooping to his ear, she called his name, to no effect, then picked up his hand and wiggled it gingerly. His arm waggled limply, and she made a soft exclamation and set his hand down again. She looked quite agitated.

  “Can he no wake up again?”

  “Not until we take away the mask,” Malva told her, rather smug.

  “Yes, but you don’t want to keep someone under longer than you need to,” I added. “It’s not good for them to be anesthetized too long.”

  Malva obediently brought Bobby back to the edge of consciousness and put him back under several times, while I made note of times and dosages. During the last of these notes, I glanced up, to see her looking down at Bobby with an intent sort of expression, seeming to concentrate on something. Lizzie had withdrawn to a corner of the surgery, plainly made uneasy by seeing Bobby unconscious, and sat on a stool, plaiting her hair and twisting it up under her cap.

  I stood up and took the mask from Malva’s hand, setting it aside.

  “You did a wonderful job,” I told her, speaking quietly. “Thank you.”

  She shook her head, face glowing.

  “Oh, ma’am! It was . . . I’ve never seen the like. It’s such a feeling, is it not? Like as we killed him, and brought him alive again.” She spread her hands out, looking at them half-unconsciously, as though wondering how she had done such a marvel, then closed them into small fists, and smiled at me, conspiratorially.

  “I think I see why my faither says it’s devil’s work. Were he to see what it’s like”—she glanced at Bobby, who was beginning to stir—“he’d say no one but God has a right to do such things.”

  “Really,” I said, rather dryly. From the gleam in her eye, her father’s likely reaction to what we had been doing was one of the chief attractions of the experiment. For an instant, I rather pitied Tom Christie.

  “Um . . . perhaps you’d better not tell your father, then,” I suggested. She smiled, showing small, sharp white teeth, and rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t you th
ink it, ma’am,” she assured me. “He’d stop me coming, as quick as—”

  Bobby opened his eyes, turned his head to one side, and threw up, putting a stop to the discussion. Lizzie gave a cry and hurried to his side, fussing over him, wiping his face and fetching him brandy to drink. Malva, looking slightly superior, stood aside and let her.

  “Oh, that’s queer,” Bobby repeated, for perhaps the tenth time, rubbing a hand across his mouth. “I saw the most terrible thing—just for a moment, there—and then I felt sick, and here it was all over.”

  “What sort of terrible thing?” Malva asked, interested. He glanced at her, looking wary and uncertain.

  “I scarcely know, tell ’ee true, miss. Only as it was . . . dark, like. A form, as you might say; I thought ’twas a woman’s. But . . . terrible,” he finished, helpless.

  Well, that was too bad. Hallucination wasn’t an uncommon side effect, but I hadn’t expected it with such a brief dose.

  “Well, I imagine it was just a bit of nightmare,” I said soothingly. “You know, it’s a form of sleep, so it’s not surprising that you might get the odd bit of dreaming now and then.”

  To my surprise, Lizzie shook her head at this.

  “Oh, no, ma’am,” she said. “It’s no sleep at all. When ye sleep, ken, ye give your soul up to the angels’ keeping, so as no ghoulies shall come near. But this . . .” Frowning, she eyed the bottle of ether, now safely corked again, then looked at me.

  “I did wonder,” she said, “where does your soul go?”

  “Er . . .” I said. “Well, I should think it simply stays with your body. It must. I mean—you aren’t dead.”

  Both Lizzie and Bobby were shaking their heads decidedly.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Lizzie said. “When ye’re sleepin’, ye’re still there. When ye do that”—she gestured toward the mask, a faint uneasiness on her small features—“ye’re not.”

  “That’s true, mum,” Bobby assured me. “You’re not.”

  “D’ye think maybe ye go to limbo, wi’ the unbaptized babes and all?” Lizzie asked anxiously.

  Malva gave an unladylike snort.

  “Limbo’s no real place,” she said. “It’s only a notion thought up by the Pope.”

  Lizzie’s mouth dropped open in shock at this blasphemy, but Bobby luckily distracted her by feeling dizzy and requiring to lie down.

  Malva seemed inclined to go on with the argument, but beyond repeating, “The Pope . . .” once or twice, simply stood, swaying to and fro with her mouth open, blinking a little. I glanced at Lizzie, only to find her glassy-eyed as well. She gave an enormous yawn and blinked at me, eyes watering.

  It occurred to me that I was beginning to feel a trifle light-headed myself.

  “Goodness!” I snatched the ether mask from Malva’s hand, and guided her hastily to a stool. “Let me get rid of this, or we’ll all be giddy.”

  I flipped open the mask, pulled the damp wad of cotton wool out of it, and carried it outside at arm’s length. I’d opened both the surgery windows, to provide ventilation and save us all being gassed, but ether was insidious. Heavier than air, it tended to sink toward the floor of a room and accumulate there, unless there was a fan or some other device to remove it. I might have to operate in the open air, I thought, were I using it for any length of time.

  I laid the cotton-wool pad on a stone to dry out, and came back, hoping that they were all too groggy now to continue their philosophical speculations. I didn’t want them following that line of thought; let it get around the Ridge that ether separated people from their souls, and I’d never get anyone to let me use it on them, no matter how dire the situation.

  “Well, thank you all for helping,” I said, smiling as I entered the room, relieved to find them all looking reasonably alert. “You’ve done something very useful and valuable. You can all go along about your business now, though—I’ll tidy up.”

  Malva and Lizzie hesitated for a moment, neither girl wanting to leave Bobby to the other, but under the impetus of my shooing, drifted toward the door.

  “When are ye to be wed, Miss Wemyss?” Malva asked casually—and loudly enough for Bobby to hear—though she certainly knew; everyone on the Ridge did.

  “In August,” Lizzie replied coolly, lifting her small nose half an inch. “Right after the haying—Miss Christie.” And then I shall be Mrs. McGillivray, her satisfied expression said. And you—Miss Christie—without an admirer to your name. Not that Malva attracted no notice from young men; only that her father and brother were assiduous in keeping them away from her.